26 TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

PUBLICATIONS

TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ARCHIVIST FOR FISCAL
YEAR JULY 1, i960 THROUGH JUNE 30,1961

In addition to a report on our archival and records management
activities, the Archivist outlined for you what we had done and what
we expected to do to protect our vital records against the special hazards
created by world tensions. While these tensions subsided subsequently,
they are still about in the wings, and the present report contains echoes
of this program. This Report appeared April 30, 1962.

MARYLAND MANUAL, 1961-1962

While most of the fact-gathering and composition occurred in the
previous fiscal year, the task of seeing so large and difficult a book
through the press fell in fiscal year 1962. The Manual appeared
February 5, just in time for the opening of the even-year session of the
General Assembly. As I pointed out in my last Report, this Manual was
the first to be paid for and distributed by the Hall of Records Com-
mission. We were not so completely prepared for either responsibility
as we had thought. We had asked for sufficient funds to print the book,
but we had forgotten that telephone calls, gasoline, wrappers, and
postage also cost something. We did not realize how difficult and
expensive it would be to distribute 4,500 copies of a large book. Our
collective ingenuities and imaginations were at times tested to the
breaking point.

Copies for the use of the executive office and for distribution there
were delivered by messenger—the male members of our staff. The
printer delivered enough to each of our record centers so that delivery
could be made via elevator to the agencies located in the State Office
Buildings. Copies for the members of the General Assembly were
made available at a desk in the State House during the legislative
session. State senators were enlisted to take copies to their respective
counties for the officers of that county, for the schools, and for the
public libraries. Four hundred copies purchased by the University of
Maryland to be sold as textbooks were delivered to the bookstore at
College Park by the University's truck. We were a long time getting
the hundreds of others to their destinations.